


boona vysta, and other mistakes not quite forgotten

by lifeitself



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, Popcorn, i may update with more oneshots but they're standalone, oneshots, rose butchers french and the doctor is Unimpressed tm, the first one is just fluff, the second one is about the void and aaron and rose, the similarities!, third one is rose and river meeting, you know. when hes being sucked towards the supernova.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2019-08-08 17:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeitself/pseuds/lifeitself
Summary: “You look like a Sontaran,” Rose laughed, throwing her head back, “except shorter.”“Excuse you, Rose Tealer!” replied the Doctor with mock affront, “I am extremely, extremely tall. Taller than you, at any rate,”“By a whole inch, Doctor, yeah,” smiled Rose, tongue in her teeth, “a whole inch. And with the hair I’ve got going now, I’m sure I look taller anyways.”The Doctor sank back into the pillows of the couch, casting a hand over her eyes. “You Tealers never let anything be, do you. Always have to defy the norm,”





	1. Boona Vysta

“Boo,” the Doctor disparaged, chucking a piece of popcorn at Rose, who tried, and failed, to duck. 

“Oi,” replied Rose, “there’s no need to get twitchy, it’s not as if you would really ever do something that stupid, is there?”

The heavy sarcasm in her voice had the Doctor clutching her chest in feigned agony. “I’m wounded, really- it’s not my fault that the dichotomy between their culture and your culture exists. If I just went up and pronounced Buena Vista how it was _supposed_ to be pronounced, instead of Boo-nuh Viss-tuh-”

“Ugh, Doctor,” Rose pleaded, stretching out on the couch with a groan. “It was one time, really, and it was the seventy-fifth century! How was I supposed to know that you were so hung up on the ‘correct’ French pronunciation-”

“Because it’s common! Sense! It’s just,” the Doctor waved her hands wildly. “Common sense. I wouldn’t walk up to you and pronounce your name Rose Tealer, would I? And also, your ducking skills are abominable, really, how have you survived this long- Tealer-”

“I don’t know, Doctor, would you?” replied Rose, and the Doctor frowned at her for a split second before Rose upended the bowl of popcorn on her head and burst out laughing. 

“No need to laugh, you did this to me yourself,” the Doctor grumbled, pulling the brown plastic bowl off of her head and shaking out her hair. 

“You look like a Sontaran,” Rose laughed, throwing her head back, “except shorter.” 

“Excuse you, Rose Tealer!” replied the Doctor with mock affront, “I am extremely, extremely tall. Taller than you, at any rate,”

“By a whole inch, Doctor, yeah,” smiled Rose, tongue in her teeth, “a whole inch. And with the hair I’ve got going now, I’m sure I look taller anyways.”

The Doctor sank back into the pillows of the couch, casting a hand over her eyes. “You Tealers never let anything be, do you. Always have to defy the norm,”

“What does that even _mean,_ Doctor,” Rose laughed, “are you saying that big hair defies the norm? I think your tenth self might disagree-”

“Don’t bring up past mistakes!” yelped the Doctor, grinning from ear to ear. “Rose Tealer! My tenth self was fashioned directly under your influence, might I remind you, so yet again, it is _clearly_ your fault that the hair was so,” she motioned around her head, “bushy.”

Rose snorted, “You tell yourself whatever makes you happy, eh? I’ll just be over here, feeling free to pronounce Boona Vystuh however I like-”

“Ro _ose_ ,” complained the Doctor, swinging her legs up over the side of the couch with a sigh, “I’m thousands of years old, and I won’t have you disrespecting the French like this. They have a lovely, lovely language,” 

“Mmmm. Just who, last week, was telling me all about how the French were nothing but pompous, accented-”

“That wasn’t me!” squeaked the Doctor, swinging one leg off of the side of the couch to poke Rose in the side, “that wasn’t me, don’t lie like that, Rose, it’s very, very unbecoming. And you know how much I hate unbecoming, it’s really awful, honestly, I should ship you off to the Scoravion Griddle just for that-”

“I would have the time of my life at the Scoravion Griddle, don’t you dare say otherwise,” rejoined Rose, grinning at the Doctor. “All those people sent off to do ‘important jobs,’ and never heard from again? I bet they’re just having a massive party. Ooh lala,” she batted her eyelashes.

“Rose,” groaned the Doctor, fighting a smile, “you’re killing the language. I mean really, the Tardis will do it all for you, just stop,” she flapped her hands, “butchering things.” 

“Ha!” proclaimed Rose, “you don’t even have an argument, do you, you’re just silly. You’re a pear-hating, rude, not ginger-”

“I thought we weren’t bringing that up,” grumbled the Doctor, swinging both legs off the side of the couch and shoving her face into the couch cushions, pushing her legs off from the side in order to sprawl across the couch languidly. 

“Just think about it for a moment, Doctor- thirteen regenerations now, and you haven’t been ginger once, and yet you’ve managed to become a blonde,”

“It’s your influence and you know it,” conjoined the Doctor, waggling her finger in Rose’s general direction and spitting out a loose piece of popcorn from her mouth absently. 

“Poor Doctor,” Rose harrumphed with a smile, “you can’t blame everything on me. Life can’t always be Elmexon VIII, so don’t even think about pulling that one… oh wait, you can’t, because they only respect the men there.” 

The Doctor replied, but it was muffled in the couch cushion, and a devilish smirk came over Rose’s face. 

“Or wait, are you referencing what happened on Elmis; Boris? Because if you are, let me remind you that-”

“No, no no no no no, Rose TEALER,” the Doctor sat straight up, but too much momentum sent her falling back into the cushions rather quickly, “We don’t talk about what happened on Elmis; Boris, you agreed, you AGREED-”

“You agreed for the both of us and you know it,” Rose sang, before upending a second bowl of popcorn over the Doctor’s head, which made the Doctor make an odd sort of squeaking noise before pushing it off. 

“Oh, you’ve got something coming for you now, Rose,” the Doctor exclaimed, standing up and throwing her arms out to her sides, “just you wait, you will absolutely rue the day, mark my very words, Rose, write them down now, let them sink into your brain, etch them on the walls of the - no don’t do that, that’d be rude,” she shot Rose a halfhearted glare, “and not ginger.” 

“Ha! I will never, ever let that go,” Rose replied, swinging out of the door of the media room with a flourish. “I know that!” the Doctor called after her, before giving herself a mighty shake to free all the popcorn loose from her clothing and hair, “and recompense will be dire! Dire!”


	2. held tighter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor reminisces on Rose after watching Aaron almost be sucked into a different sort of void.

The Dalek was clinging to Aaron’s back with a strength that he himself could barely comprehend, let alone focus on. He was barely conscious of his own consciousness, really. 

Later, he would think that it was strange that everyone on that ship had thought it was him choosing to hold on to the sides of that strange ship.

The truth was, he hadn’t been aware he had been holding on. He hadn’t been aware of anything but the fleeting sensation of a scorching heat against his back and the ooze of tentacles down his spine. The terror in Ryan’s eyes. The vague feeling of trying to reach for a hand he could barely see - the Dalek controlling his movements to such an extent that he couldn’t look at his own fingertips. The suction against his body. The subconscious knowledge that if he let go, he would be pulled out into nothingness and burn into a supernova like some sort of dying, humanoid star.

But what he remembered after the Dalek had let go was, to him, almost as important.

That is, his memory of the Doctor’s expression when he had collapsed onto the floor of the Tardis, gravity again engaging in that small (yet infinitely big) spaceship. For a moment, it had been glaringly obvious that she was somewhere else, seeing something else, seeing someone else. Something he couldn’t decipher had been in her eyes. Something painful and old and terrified but something grounded and relieved for him- that he was safe. That he had made it. 

That vulnerability had warmed him to her. Made her less of this _strange otherworldly thing_ and plummeted her back to the ‘Earthly’ level of emotions. 

But as much as he was sure that he had seen those almost familiar emotions in her eyes, he could not erase the feeling that whatever had triggered those emotions was bigger than he could ever hope to imagine. 

* * *

_“And I suppose, if it’s my last chance to say it- Rose Tyler-”_

The Doctor sat bolt upright from where she had been closing her eyes under the console of the Tardis, hearts speeding up to an almost dangerous speed. No, no, no, no no. She was _done_ with those dreams. Done with watching Rose’s gloved hand reach towards her face and pause, face breaking into pieces.

Ignoring her, her brain supplied her own old words back to her- a sort of whisper that swam unspoken through the air around her. “No touch,” a gravelly sadness touching them.

The Doctor shook her head fiercely, closing her eyes a moment. 

It was to no avail. Although she no longer saw Rose’s face behind her lids, she now saw the terrified face of Aaron, clinging to the sides of the Tardis walls as hard as he could. Ryan, inching as close as he could to his father without compromising them both and sending them plunging into a supernova. Reaching out a helpless hand. 

And just like that, the memory of Aaron’s helplessly grasping fingers disappeared, and over his terrified face and clammy hands were superimposed Rose’s, her hands gripping the handle of _that clamp_ with a determined ferocity. And then _not_ gripping the handle- The Doctor heard her own breath leave her in a sudden burst, as if she were not a part of her own body, before she was once again herself.

At least Ryan had had the strength of character, the forethought- he had said I love you as soon as he could stand to- knowing- knowing his father might not make it. Hoping that the phrase would give him strength to hold on. 

She hadn’t done that for Rose, had she? The Doctor ran a hand over her face, then brought it down to her lap, staring at its thin and unfamiliar build for a moment. She hadn’t ever- she hadn’t ever actually, _herself,_ told Rose Tyler that she was loved. Loved by the Doctor. That the Doctor loved her. That she-

She had thought it hundreds of times. Every time Rose’s tongue touched her teeth in a laugh. Every time she glanced towards the Doctor with mischief in her eyes. Every time she stood her ground for the protection of the Earth- or a civilization other than the Earth that she knew absolutely _nothing_ about but still protected with a furious vengeance. 

She wasn’t surprised that she was thinking along these lines, she supposed, after a moment of watching Rose’s terrified eyes as she flew towards the void for the millionth time behind the Doctor’s rapidly blinking eyes. 

She should have realized that watching people being sucked towards their certain death, paired with the words, “I love you,” would bring up a resurgence of emotions so strong she would be helpless against it. 

And yet, here she was, still taken off guard by the sheer strength of the grief suffusing her. She turned her eyes towards the doors of the Tardis, which swung open to a view of a constellation made up of seven hundred thousand, four hundred and twelve stars- a constellation named the Rose constellation. 

The Tardis knew her better than she knew herself. Always had. Always would. 

And somewhere, billions of miles away, Ryan and Ryan’s dad (still safely ensconced in the same dimension as each other, she thought with a half smile, still together,) were sleeping soundly in their beds in Sheffield. Yasmin might be making an evening tea this instant. Graham was perhaps sitting in a chair that once belonged to Grace, falling asleep to the patter of rain on his window. 

And that was enough for her right now, to know that. Because even if she couldn’t save who really mattered to her then, the people she was close to now, with this face, they had managed to save each other. They were strong enough to proclaim their love in the face of anything. She smiled ruefully, pulling herself to her feet and wandering over to the open Tardis doors, surveying the stars. There was a long moment of silence. 

“And I suppose… if it’s the last time I’ll say it, then- and the first, really, properly-” The Doctor trailed off a moment, a soft, nostalgic smile curling her lips. “Rose Tyler- I love you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you're telling me no one else saw the similarities? that the doctor didn't see those similar situation overlapping in her mind? lol


	3. melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor lands in a garden. Rose meets River.

The Tardis was smoking. Rose blinked slowly into awareness, steam and smoke curling through her hair, reducing it to a crimped and frizzy mess. The moon hung low in the sky, the stars twinkling quietly above her.

The Doctor had gone and crushed some poor bloke’s garden, and the Tardis was half-embedded into the soil, one door hinged inwards, dirt falling inwards in large clumps. 

Sighing, she pushed herself onto her feet and winced, biting back a cuss and bracing herself against a tree. 

“Had a bit of a fall, then?” came a voice, sweet and full of laughter. Rose spun towards the source, a woman with a quirked eyebrow high on her forehead and a large mane of curly brownish hair. Clad in dark fabrics, she was almost easy to miss, save for the glint in her eyes and the halo of moonlight caught in her curls. She was leaning against a tree. 

“He’s gone and done something monumentally stupid, then,” she observed, amused, traipsing leisurely towards the Tardis. “You look like-Rose Tyler?” she wondered. “I don’t suppose you’ve met me yet,” she mused. 

“River Song,” Rose finally placed, and River’s eyes flew to hers, a sort of fear flashing through them suddenly. 

“So you have met me,” she spoke decisively. “Don’t remember that bit, but things are always a bit backwards around the Doctor, aren’t they? Suppose I might, soon.”

Rose opened her mouth, deliberated. “She.” she finally enunciated softly. 

River leaned forwards a little, frowning. “Pardon?”

“The Doctor. She’s-” Rose gestured to the Tardis. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go an’ make sure she’s not down there-” she stopped. _Regenerating._ “Stuffin’ her face with custard creams.”

“Sorry, _she?”_ River asked, voice very intrigued. Despite this, however, there was no denying the fear in her voice. “You mean-”

“Regeneration. Yeah,” Rose agreed, trying to pull an edge of her mouth into a smile. “Been a while since it happened, though, an’ I’m only just getting used to it, so I s’pose I’d best go make sure she’s alright.” 

“I’ll come with you,” River exclaimed, curls bouncing, eyes a bit too shiny. “Long time no see. Well, it was yesterday- but it was also 300 BC. You know how those things are.”

“Yeah,” Rose agreed. “Only- mind, I’m not sure-” she paused. “Nevermind. I’m sure the Doctor would love a familiar face when she wakes up.”

River nodded, and the two women walked to the edge of where the Tardis was sunk into the ground. River didn’t hesitate before jumping forwards, landing on the grating of the Tardis with a loud clang. She paused a moment, not facing the door, before she spun around and extended a hand, smile on her face. 

“Never let it be said I’m not courteous,” she winked, and Rose murmured a ‘thanks’ before reaching for the extended hand and descending down into the Tardis. 

“Well,” marvelled River softly. “Isn’t this pleasant. Loving the soft touches. Last bit around was all edges, lines. Fit him, though,” she added conspiratorially, giving Rose a rather large wink again before her smile flickered a bit. “At least, I _think_ it would be the last time. Don’t suppose you know how long it’s been since-”

“Just the once, yeah,” Rose assured her, and River’s face seemed to war between sadness and relief.

“It’s true, then,” she murmured. “Our time really does run out.”

“She doesn’t ever forget you,” Rose said softly, and River’s face seemed to crumple, just a bit, at the confirmation. “The Doctor never does. You inspire her every day, I know.”

River’s smile was a bit wobbly, but she still turned to Rose with it on, her eyes welling a bit with tears before she turned back to face the console. “It’s funny,” she started, breathing out shakily to steady herself. “Time travel, that is. You think you have all the time in the world. You’ve got a time machine between you. What could get in the way of love when you have the entirety of time- and space,” she sighed. “It all will come to an end, someday.” 

“Hasn’t, yet,” Rose spoke softly, giving River an encouraging sort of half-smile. “Not for you. Won’t for a good while. You’ve got all the time in the world, literally.” She nudged River with a shoulder. “You’re loved, River Song. Always will be. Still are.”

There was a long moment of contemplative silence.

“Oh, I suppose,” River replied softly. “That’s what the Doctor does, isn’t it? Love and love and love until the world goes quiet.”

“Yeah,” Rose whispered in agreement. 

They approached the console, where the Doctor sat slumped over several levers, eyelashes flickering on her cheeks, hair crumpled on a cheek, chest rising and falling.

River approached hesitantly, a hand adorned with a wedding band stretching out to tuck a tendril of hair behind the Doctor’s ear. “Sweetie,” she breathed. “Lovely as ever.” She pulled her hand back until it hovered above the Doctor’s cheek, fingers trembling. After a long moment, she pulled her arm back the rest of the way to rest listlessly by her side. 

She turned her eyes to Rose’s, and her face was suddenly very sad, and very set. 

“I can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head and ducking her eyes for a moment before lifting them up again. “Can’t bring myself to wake her. I’m not that- selfish.” She breathed out, a sad thing. “I know you were thinking I was, earlier, when I came down to see her.” She shook her head, an almost remorseful look on her face. “I could never. And I hate myself for it- just a bit- turning around when I could look in the Doctor’s eyes once more. But it’s best this way. The universe keeps turning, and always will.” 

She approached Rose, who had been quiet, and reached out to grab both her hands, looking into her eyes beseechingly. “Love her well,” she all but pleaded. “She needs it more than she’ll _ever_ admit.” 

“I know,” Rose replied quietly, reassuring. “I will. I do.”

River let out a shaky breath. “Good,” she answered, and Rose watched her steel herself. “I’ll be off, then. Have a Doctor to catch.” 

“‘S good to meet you,” Rose supplied in a gentle undertone. “Hope to see you again.”

“Don’t count on it,” River replied, hoisting herself up onto the ground outside of the Tardis and turning around to wink at Rose one last time. “I’ll be off doing my own thing. Maybe I’ll see _you_ , though. Until then, Rose Tyler.”

When the Doctor awoke, she sat bolt upright, almost fell off her stool, and then frowned, touching her cheek for a long moment, eyes flickering to Rose’s. Rose said nothing, and the Doctor frowned and shook her head before beaming at her. “Well that was only sort of a rubbish vacation,” she exclaimed proudly, and Rose beamed. “Where to next, Rose Tyler?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these two would never be catty. they are amazing, amazing women and i love them both so much.

**Author's Note:**

> @lifesitself on tumblr  
> i love hearing from you!


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